


Somewhere Among the Stars

by LeaXIII



Series: Somewhere Among the Stars [1]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, hoo lordy here we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7935367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaXIII/pseuds/LeaXIII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first installment in a (probably many-part because I hate myself) Marble Hornets Star Wars AU. Stay tuned for an actual description to be added later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dumb Luck

Jay Merrick was having a terrible day.

Voices shouted behind him as he ran, at least three voices, maybe more, but he hardly heard them over the steady crunch of snow beneath his boots and the rush of freezing wind in his ears, a stark contrast to the fire that bloomed in his lungs with each frantic gasp for air. He resisted the urge to hazard a glance over his shoulder as he sprinted, as fast as he possibly could, and then a blaster bolt whizzed past his head to hit the remains of a burned-out speeder in a fantastic explosion of sparks and he ran even faster.

The small scrapyard was littered with similar piles of obsolete parts and crashed ships stacked on top of one another, forming a densely packed obstacle course for him to weave through and duck behind at the sound of more blaster fire from his pursuers. It would never be enough to lose them completely, though, and so he kept running in what was more or less a straight line rather than trying to double back and hide among the wreckage.

Through the insistent blizzard whipping at his clothes and cutting into his skin and reducing visibility to near-zero, a dark gray mass began to take shape ahead of him, reaching into the marginally lighter gray of the sky, and he veered to the right just in time to dodge another shot. He was nearing the edge of the scrapyard, but consequently running out of cover; he ducked his head and took a zigzagging path through the dangerously open area, relying on pure muscle-memory rather than sight, and finally looked up just as he reached the smooth duracrete of the six-meter wall.

He threw himself at it without a moment's hesitation, numb fingers scrambling to find the uneven brick he knew was there, his other arm already reaching for the top, and as he swung himself up and over, he caught one last glimpse of the group – there were four of them after all, two lifting blasters that wouldn't find their target in time.

And then he was falling, with only a split second to wonder whether the inside of the wall might have already been cleared – he'd walked with a limp for a full week the last time – before finally landing safely and softly in the usual meter-high snowdrift and then, only then, once he could hear the slowing of footsteps on the other side of the wall accompanied by the sound of defeat in a short, sharp curse, and he could finally hear himself _think_ , did he stop to take a breath.

“Am I crazy, or did that seem like overkill for something as boring as an old motivator?” he grumbled aloud as he slowly climbed to his feet, to which the small silver droid hovering next to his shoulder beeped out a stern response.

Jay shook his head and started walking down the narrow, winding alley ahead, brushing the excess snow off his clothes with one hand. “It was _rhetorical_ , R5.”

The path finally opened into a rough street, the fresh snow already packed down beneath the day's foot traffic. The settlement was always a flurry of activity, especially here, so close to the western gate; all manner of merchants, travellers, mechanics, and individuals whose professions Jay could only guess were on their way to or from the gate as the pair emerged from the alley. A few odd glances were thrown his way, but the majority of the passersby were too wrapped up in their own business to notice or care about the slight human and his spherical companion.

Jay paused for a moment to lean against the side of a building, still catching his breath and still not finished with his earlier complaint. “Besides, just because it's happened a few times before–” R5 buzzed once, and Jay rolled his eyes– “okay, _many_ times before. It still doesn't mean that–”

The sound of a commotion nearby cut him off. Cautiously, Jay took a few steps forward to peer around the corner toward the source of the noise, just in time to see his pursuers shoving through the crowd at the gate, and just in time for one of them to spot him and alert the others.

And then Jay was running again without time for a second thought, weaving his way down the street and away from the gate, and ignoring the scattered protests thrown at him in varying languages from the people he pushed past in the process.

“I can't believe they're actually bringing this into the settlement!” He rounded a corner and stopped for a moment to catch his breath, with a quick glance to ensure that R5 was still keeping up. “Since when is _one_ lousy piece of junk worth all this?”

As he turned to scan the crowd behind them, R5 buzzed a reply, and Jay rolled his eyes again, pressing one hand to the wall beside him. “Well, if you know of a better place to find a working FV40 motivator, then I'd _love_ to hear it, but until then–”

Another shout interrupted him, from somewhere in _front_ of him rather than behind, and he turned just in time to see the crowd part, avoiding the blaster that was now pointed in his direction from less than ten meters away.

“Down!” Jay snatched R5 by one of her antennae, yanking her out of the line of fire, and tucked her under one arm like a bolo ball as he made a break for the nearest alleyway.

“Can I finish _one_ sentence today?” he shouted to no one in particular as he ran, rounding corners blindly and relying on his sense of direction to keep him from running into a–

“Dead end!” He punched the wall as if it would give way to another path, then immediately regretted the action, cradling his now-throbbing right hand in his left and finally allowing R5 to squirm free.

She announced her displeasure at being carried so unceremoniously with a rapid-fire lecture of beeps as she orbited his head for a moment, like an extremely disgruntled satellite, and Jay threw his arms up in exasperation. “Sorry, next time I'll make sure to do _nothing_ and let you get _shot!_ ”

He quickly fell silent at the sound of approaching footsteps from the street. Cautiously, he inched forward to peer around the corner, and cursed under his breath at the sight of only two familiar figures approaching; the four of them must have split up to widen their perimeter. Slipping past both groups would only prove even more difficult. But at least they hadn't noticed him yet.

R5 whirred uncertainly behind him, and he quickly shushed her as he ducked back into the safety of the alley. “Just stay quiet, stay low, and stay close. I can handle this,” he whispered, creeping silently toward the dead end.

The pain was draining quickly from his right hand, which he was silently grateful for as he reached up to run his fingers over the icy wall of the building to his left. It didn't take him long to find a small indention in the stone, just large enough that he could pull himself up, and so he did, disappearing over the edge of the roof along with R5 just as the footsteps reached the alleyway.

He waited until they were gone before he stood, and then moved quickly, but carefully, sticking to the roofs that were covered by a thick layer of snow rather than the occasional durasteel sheet propped up at an uneven angle, and only jumping across the larger gaps when there was no way to avoid it. As he drew closer to the marketplace, the sound of a familiar voice drifted up from the adjacent street to reach his ears, asking if anyone had seen a thief running by.

Jay dropped into a crouch, ducking his head to ensure that he wouldn't be visible from the street, and took the opportunity to catch his breath. R5 plopped herself into the snow next to him, posing an inquiry with a single soft beep.

“No, we _can't_ just stay up here. We have to keep moving.” He had to stop speaking for a moment as a shudder rolled through him, not the ordinary shivering that was a constant part of life on such a cold planet as Saqqar, but one that was a clear warning against something as inadvisable as sitting knee-deep in a snowdrift; it shook him violently enough to steal the air from his lungs and knock his teeth together so audibly that he was almost worried his pursuer might hear.

“They can probably keep searching much longer than we can keep hiding. And besides, I'm already late,” Jay added with a grimace, shifting his weight in an attempt to return the feeling to his feet. As the questioning voice below began to fade with distance, he snuck a peek over the side edge of the roof before leaping to the next.

The instant he made the jump, though, he knew it was a mistake.

His legs were numb and heavy, unable to propel him as far as they should have, and of course dumb luck would determine the snow piled on this particular roof to be too unstable so close to the edge. And so he fell, though really it was more of a slide as part of the snow collapsed along with him, but the end result was still the same; he was now on the ground.

With another breathless curse, he scrambled to his feet, which were still sluggish and staticky with numbness but now burning from the impact, and dove for the nearest cover he could find: a collection of large crates, stacked haphazardly next to one of the more secluded market stalls, which was thankfully unmanned at the moment.

As far as quick hiding spots went, it actually seemed to be a good one; Jay was just about to pull the lid off the nearest crate and attempt to climb inside, when the sound of footsteps made him freeze in place.

He didn't dare sneak a peek at whoever was approaching, but he didn't have to; as they drew nearer, his throat tightened at the unmistakable _click_ of a blaster being drawn from its holster.

Quickly, before they would be close enough to hear the movement, Jay snatched R5 out of the air again and clutched her tightly to his chest with both arms; this time, she did not protest. He pressed his back to the stack of crates, the only thing between him and that blaster, and curled into a ball to try and make himself as small as possible.

The footsteps stopped. Jay's heart thudded frantically against his ribcage, every muscle in his body tensed, bracing for the inevitable.

“Hear something?”

The gravelly voice would have made Jay flinch, if he hadn't been devoting all his concentration to remaining completely motionless; it was _close_ , dangerously so, originating from a point that couldn't have been more than a few centimeters from the other side of the crate next to Jay's head.

“Maybe not,” came the reply, from slightly further away. “Thought I did.”

His heart pounding in his ears, even more so from the lack of oxygen as he held his breath, Jay turned his head the tiniest fraction, just enough that he could peer through the smallest sliver of an opening between two of the crates.

“Looks like some snow just fell from up there.”

A boot crunched in the snow as one of them stepped forward, and Jay's eyes involuntarily closed for a split-second before he forced them back open. His grip on R5 tightened. They were so _close_ ; he could see the individual threads in the fang insignia on the sleeve of the nearest one's outer coat. If one of them so much as leaned toward the crates, there was no way they wouldn't see him.

His eyes closed again, and he shifted R5's weight marginally in his hands, ready to throw her up and out of reach the instant it became necessary.

“Don't see any footprints,” the first one stated.

“Guess that's all it was, then,” the second one decided.

“Yeah. Probably couldn't have made it this far so quick, anyway.”

And just like that, the footsteps started up again, this time growing further away.

Jay waited until the sound had faded completely before he dared to start breathing again.

Slowly, he loosened his grip on R5; slowly, he climbed up into a kneeling position, then a crouch, and finally stood up completely at the sight of the practically deserted street.

Next to him, R5 made a noise that could only be described as a sigh of relief, and Jay turned to face her with a slightly shaky grin.

“See? Told you not to worry.” He swung an elbow up to lean against the stack of crates beside him, in an overly exaggerated display of nonchalance that made R5 roll her eye.

As if right on cue, the surprisingly lightweight crate beneath his elbow toppled forward, throwing him off-balance. With only a minimal amount of scrambling, he managed to catch himself against another stack – dumb luck that he'd chosen the _one_ _stack_ of empty crates, always, always just _dumb luck_ – but the damage was already done, and the avalanche of crates crashed noisily to the ground.

“This way!” came a familiar shout from nearby.

With an exasperated exhale, Jay pointed a stern finger at R5.

“Don't you even say it.”

* * *

 “You're late.”

Jay couldn't help flinching a bit at the nearness of the voice; it had been only a few minutes since he'd finally managed to lose his pursuers amid the winding back alleys of the settlement, and he was still a little out of breath and more than a little on edge from the chase. He relaxed, though, when he turned to see a single Arkanian frowning at him from a side street.

“Always excellent to see you too, Lairo,” Jay said with a grin and an exaggeratedly formal bow as he approached. “My _sincerest_ apologies, I seem to have run into a bit of bad luck today.”

Lairo's unamused expression didn't change. “That's not my concern. I offered you a deal, provided that you get the part to me before noon. And noon was half an hour ago.”

Jay's lighthearted smile faded, and he glanced at R5. “Okay, it's a little late,” he admitted, shrugging his bag off his shoulders and fishing out the item in question. “But I _have_ it, and that's the important part, right?”

Lairo's eyes flicked over the motivator for a long moment before he spoke. “I'll give you half.”

Jay's mouth fell open. “ _Half?_ ” He looked around incredulously, struggling to form words. “Do you have any idea what I went through to get this?” He punctuated his sentence by shoving the part into Lairo's face, making him roll his eyes and take a step back.

“Not my concern,” he repeated, and shook his head at Jay's sour expression. “If you think you'll find someone else here that will offer you a better deal, then please, be on your way. I certainly wouldn't want to _delay_ you,” he added in a mockingly polite tone, holding out a handful of coins.

Grudgingly, Jay handed over the motivator. Lairo dropped the coins into his hand with a hint of a smirk, and it took all of Jay's self-control to keep his fist clenched at his side rather than redecorate the Arkanian's face.

“Always a pleasure doing business with you.” This time, it was Lairo's turn to give an exaggerated bow; with that, he turned to leave, his robes flaring dramatically behind him as he walked away. Jay watched him go, hoping Lairo could feel his eyes burning holes into his back.

Finally, he let out a sigh of resignation and started walking. “C'mon, let's go.”

R5 started toward him, then stopped, beeping out a question at his choice of direction.

Without turning around, he waved a hand. “Today was a failure, but this is at least enough to get a drink before we head back.”

At that, she quickly caught up to him, buzzing quietly about the day's events in a manner reminiscent of a human muttering a string of curses.

“You win some, you lose some,” Jay said with a shrug. “Besides, if there's any justice in the galaxy, that motivator'll be defective,” he added with a hopeful smile.


	2. Warning

“That scrap of yours stable?” a voice bellowed.

Jay turned to face the bored-looking Ithorian who stood a few meters from the entrance to the cantina, pointing one gloved finger to the droid at Jay's side. “It won't short-circuit, 'nd cause any problems?” they elaborated, switching mouths halfway through the sentence to yawn.

He nodded. “Fully functional. And no flammable materials,” he finished before they could. R5 beeped twice in agreement.

The Ithorian let out a heavy sigh of annoyance, but waved the pair inside.

“No more of that, R5,” Jay ordered in a hushed whisper once they were out of earshot. “You're even worse of a liar than I am.” R5 buzzed once, but didn't argue.

Crowded though the bar was, it didn't take long for Jay to obtain the cheapest drink on the menu and find an empty booth in the corner of the cantina. He liked being able to see the whole room at a glance; it made it much easier to scan the crowd for friendly – or not-so-friendly – faces.

The glow of a holoprojector caught his eye, and he craned his neck to get a better look at the cloaked figure it belonged to. From his vantage point across the room, he could only catch a brief glimpse of what appeared to be a human hand beneath the flickering blue image of a swoop bike – a rather outdated CK-4 model, Jay noted – before the taller figure sitting next to the human shook their head and waved an arm apologetically, blocking his view. As the second stood up and walked away, the first deactivated the holo and slumped a bit, but seemed less than surprised.

It was easy for Jay to connect the dots, and he wondered just how many sellers had met with the human and subsequently turned him down; finding parts for such an old speeder was like finding a coin in a snowdrift.

Of course, that never proved to be an issue for Jay. He nudged R5. “This day might not be a complete failure after all.”

He moved to get up, but froze when a hooded figure slid into the booth across from him with stunning grace.

“Uh...hello,” Jay began uncertainly when they didn't speak. “Are you... Did you, uh, need...”

He trailed off as two slender hands reached up to pull back the hood, revealing a strikingly beautiful Vultan, smiling sweetly at Jay.

“I...think you might have the wrong table,” he stammered.

The Vultan smiled, and shook her head. “You don't know me, but I definitely know who you are.” She leaned forward, and something flashed in her eyes that made Jay's hair stand on end. “We _all_ know who you are, Jay Merrick.”

Jay blinked, tried to come up with a response, and failed. Instead, his gaze fell to her hands, folded before her on the table, to the all-too-familiar insignia on the ring she was wearing, and everything clicked into place.

“Oh, you're with _them_.” He refrained from rolling his eyes. “Look, like I've told you a million times–”

“I've heard so much about you, but this is the first time I've had the pleasure of seeing you with my own eyes,” she continued, like he hadn't spoken at all. “I must say, I'm impressed. It's said that humans almost _never_ make good scavengers, yet here you are.”

He bristled at the word _scavenger_ , but let it go. “Well, I'm so glad to have made your day, but–”

“Oh, of course,” she interrupted again, “I'm sure you're a very _busy_ human, lots of important business to attend to. Tell me, might any of this business involve something as interesting as, say, an FV40 motivator?”

“No,” Jay replied, much too quickly. He made a show of patting his pockets, then shrugged. “Looks like I'm not your guy after all.”

The Vultan pursed her lips, obviously unconvinced, but nodded. “Well, do keep an eye out for him, would you? We're _very_ anxious to meet him.”

“Alright, I'll keep that in mind.” He stood up to leave, with a quick motion for R5 to follow.

“Very interesting circuitry in that droid, by the way,” she said, raising her voice just enough to stop him in his tracks. “You don't really find material like that just anywhere, do you.” She paused to take a casual glance at her fingers, drumming on the table, before continuing. “Something as rare as that would fetch quite a price, I imagine.”

“Over my dead body,” Jay growled. At that, the Vultan grinned, and he instantly regretted his phrasing. “The droid is _not_ for sale,” he reiterated, taking a small step back as she rose to her feet.

“Of course, of course, I understand,” she said with another smile, and leaned forward, just enough to encroach upon Jay's personal space. “But, _do_ be careful out there,” she continued, her voice dripping with insincere concern. “ _Scavenging_ can be quite a dangerous profession. Especially if one should wander too far off the beaten path...”

Her eyes met his with a thinly veiled glare, making sure he understood the implication. Jay's hand clenched into a fist. A twinge of unease crept into his throat, but he took a deep breath to quell the feeling; his face set into a mask of indifference, he gave a quick shrug. “I'm just trying to survive like everybody else.”

With that, he turned to walk away, but the Vultan was having none of it; she snatched Jay's elbow roughly and whirled him around to face her, all notions of mock civility forgotten. “Survive?” She twisted her fingers in the collar of Jay's jacket. “You want to _survive_ , you should've stayed out of our territory, scavenger scum!”

Jay opened his mouth to answer, but before he had a chance, R5 lunged in between the two, buzzing angrily and waving her arm in the Vultan's face. A few heads turned toward the commotion; with a quick glance around, the Vultan slowly released her hold on Jay and raised her palms in surrender.

“Not the time, not the place,” she noted, straightening Jay's jacket with an obviously artificial smile. She waved R5 aside and took a step forward, patting Jay's shoulder as she passed, and leaned in close enough that Jay could feel her breath as she hissed in his ear, “Watch your back, _scum_.”

With that, she brushed past Jay; he glared over his shoulder, watching her go until she was out of sight. Finally, he exhaled, slumping back down into his seat and pressing his forehead into his hand. R5 hovered beside him, emitting a concerned beep.

Jay looked up, pasting a smile onto his face. “Don't worry,” he said, and patted the top of R5's casing. “They're all talk, anyway.”

With a sigh, he returned his attention to the other patrons of the cantina. His eyes found the human at the end of the bar again, and he cursed under his breath; someone else had already engaged him. However, Jay quickly noted how out of place this one looked: dressed in shiny, new-looking armor, leaning in close to speak in a hushed whisper that seemed much too intense to be about a speeder.

Whatever the subject of conversation, the human appeared to be completely disinterested; he barely looked up from his drink at all, waving them away. As one armored hand came down on the human's shoulder, Jay sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly noticing the blaster at the newcomer's side an instant before they drew it.

A bounty hunter. Jay tensed, one arm already reaching for R5 to pull her into cover under the table along with him.

Before he could blink, though, there was a brilliant flash of light, and a loud scream filled the crowded space, silencing it. It took a few seconds for Jay's vision to clear; when it did, his mouth fell open.

The human stood over the armor-clad figure, who was sprawled on the floor, writhing and cradling what was left of their right arm; below the elbow, it was simply _gone_...

No, not gone. Jay blinked, staring wide-eyed at the rest of the arm, where it lay smoking on the floor a short distance away from the rest of the bounty hunter.

He looked up, back to the human whose hood had fallen to his shoulders, revealing a head of messy, dark hair and chiseled features whose scars spoke of a rough life.

But most enthralling was the brightly glowing blade in the man's hand. It was a vibrant yellow, the color of a golden sun on a planet he'd only heard of in stories. The blade pulsed with a heavy energy that Jay could feel even from across the room. No doubt, it was menacing, dangerous; the whimpering bounty hunter on the floor was proof enough of that. Yet, the sight made Jay feel oddly warm, comforted.

Suddenly, as if he was just becoming aware of where he was, the man lifted his head to look at the startled patrons around him, all staring, dumbfounded. He straightened his posture, and the blade disappeared into a silver handle with a _whoosh_. Without a word, he turned and made a beeline for the exit, leaving a crowd of murmurs in his wake as the stunned silence began to fade.

Jay got to his feet, slowly, his eyes intently following the man until he disappeared around a corner.

R5 hummed beside him, and he glanced to her for a moment, before looking back to the doorway, unable to stop a smile from spreading across his face.

“Today isn't so bad after all.”

 


	3. Intruder

Of all the planets Tim Wright had been to, Saqqar had to be one of the worst.

He had plenty of reasons to hate the planet, and plenty of time to grumble about them as he walked back to his shelter, sans speeder of course; a full week of more socializing than he'd ever wanted to do here, and still he'd found no one that could fix the thing. Most of the mechanics he'd met had turned him down simply at the sight of the bike, before he even had a chance to explain the problem; the piece of junk was just too old.

And now, because his speeder had a habit of stalling, because he'd been to the settlement so much recently, the time had already come for him to pick up and leave. _Again_.

Frustration clenched his hands into fists, but he relaxed them, releasing the emotion with a heavy exhale of fog.

It didn't matter anymore. After what had happened in the settlement, he had no further use for the bike, except maybe as a bargaining chip to get off of this frozen chunk of rock.

If it was even worth enough for that. As he approached the entrance to the familiar stone structure, he shot a glare at the speeder in question. Briefly, he considered kicking it over for good measure, but decided against it; now was not the time to linger outside. The wind had turned completely horizontal now, the cold stabbing into his skin like a thousand tiny knives – though that could have been the tiny bits of ice carried along with it, a wave of sleet as a relatively mild warning of the blizzard that was surely on its way.

Maybe he'd try for something more tropical next time, he decided as he entered the shelter.

The small space couldn't be called a _home_ , really, but it had been _his_ and that was at least something. He'd miss the seclusion; of course, that was something he looked for in _any_ prospective living space, but out here – in one of so many identical abandoned towers among the wastelands of a planet so far to the edge of the Outer Rim that he'd never even heard of it before arriving – was about as secluded as he could ever hope to get.

He paused for a moment to close his eyes and inhale, nearly managing to drown out the wind whipping against the outside of the ancient stone walls.

He'd miss the quiet.

At that moment, he was alerted to another's presence by a crash from behind him. He'd let his guard down, he realized a moment too late, and in less than a second he was across the room, lightsaber drawn to form a deadly barrier between himself and the brown-haired human scrambling backwards, away from his former hiding spot behind the makeshift shelf he'd knocked over.

“I– I'm sorry!” The intruder's hands found the wall behind him, and he pressed himself into it, his wide green-gray eyes locked onto the glowing amber blade.

“You are,” Tim agreed. He took one slow step forward, raising his arm until the saber's pulsing edge was mere centimeters from the terrified man's face. “Who sent you?”

“No one!” he stammered, briefly holding up his palms in surrender before pressing them against the wall again, as if he might crumple to the floor without the support.

And he very well could, Tim noted, briefly glancing over the man's rather diminutive frame. Beneath the ill-fitting parka that was practically slipping off his shoulders with how violently he shook, he was hardly more than skin and bones. It was almost amusing; Tim found himself pondering just how in blazes such a slight thing could survive on as harsh a planet as Saqqar, when he seemed to be having trouble simply remembering how to speak.

“I'm only– My name is Jay, and no one sent me here, I...” Jay's eyes darted away for an instant before returning to Tim. “I followed you from the settlement. I'm sorry, I– I saw your lightsaber, and...” He made a slight gesture toward the object in question. “You're a... You have to be... Are you–”

“You came here alone?” Tim inquired, slowly, leaning in close enough that the uninvited guest could feel the heat of the saber on his skin.

Jay let out an audible wince and twitched away from the blade. “Yes. Well...” His gaze fell once more.

In the same instant that Tim turned to glance over his shoulder, a burst of angry beeping reached his ears. A silver blur darted into his field of vision, and Tim took a measured step back to scowl at the floating ball of scrap metal that inserted itself between him and Jay.

His grip on the lightsaber tightened at the sight of the large ocular sensor in the center of the sphere. “You brought a _droid_?”

Despite all the unspoken threats, Tim never had any intention of killing the intruder, even if he _had_ revealed himself to be another damned bounty hunter. Old habits were hard to break; he wouldn't take a sentient life.

A droid, however... Well, he had no such qualms about artificial sentience.

“Stop!” In a surprisingly quick motion, Jay stepped forward, shoving the droid behind him with one arm. The lightsaber stopped just short of the man's chest, and he flinched, but didn't move beyond leaning away a bit; the movement forced the droid back against the wall, and it beeped in protest.

Tim blinked, slowly, and held the saber steady. “Move.”

With a slight shudder, Jay shook his head. “I know I shouldn't have followed you, and I'm sorry,” he repeated, his voice suddenly much stronger than before. “But we– We aren't a threat to you, just–”

“That is a surveillance droid,” Tim stated evenly, with a nod toward the round sensor darting back and forth between the two of them like a bulbous eye. “I will let you walk out of here, but not with that.”

“It's not recording!” Jay shifted his weight to take a small step to the side, putting more distance between himself and the lightsaber. “This droid doesn't even _have_ surveillance subroutines anymore, there's no reason for you to–”

“I prefer to err on the side of caution,” Tim interrupted. He took another step toward Jay, who took another step back. “That's how I've made it this far.”

“Look, y-you... You needed a part, for your speeder, right? That's why you were– I overheard you earlier, it's kind of what I do,” Jay stammered, his eyes darting about the room. “I'll– Let me fix it for you, no charge, I'll take care of getting the parts and everything.”

Tim's eyes widened a bit with realization. “You're a scavenger.”

“I'm a _mechanic_ ,” the scavenger replied forcefully, his eyes narrowing. “Only sometimes I have to find creative ways to get the parts I need,” he clarified.

“I have no need for a mechanic.” With a sigh, Tim motioned with his lightsaber toward the door, now only a few steps away from Jay. “Take your droid and leave. Don't come back, and this doesn't have to get any uglier.”

Jay visibly relaxed, then hesitated. “But I... You– If I could just–”

Tim lifted the saber to point it at him again, eliminating all further attempts at speech. “Leave. _Now_. I won't tell you again.”

At that, the mechanic nodded with a strange reluctance, and pushed the protesting droid behind him along with one hand as he backed away.

Tim didn't move until Jay was completely outside, until his footsteps were lost with the sound of the wind. Only then did he finally deactivate the lightsaber and let out a heavy breath, unable to shake the feeling that he was going to regret letting that fool leave alive.

 


	4. Tempest

“That probably could have gone much better.”

R5 beeped in agreement beside Jay as he hugged his arms tightly around himself, taking slow, trudging steps against the wind. He paused and turned to steal one last glance at the tower he'd been kicked out of, but it was a futile effort. Even without the quickly-strengthening blizzard tearing at his skin through the heavy parka, he was already much too far away; from this distance, the structure would have been within sight only on the very highest of visibility days, and even then, just _barely_.

Another beep from next to his ear informed him that he'd been standing still too long. “I know, I know,” he mumbled, and concentrated once again on the challenging task of putting one foot in front of the other, waving dismissively to R5.

It did nothing to deter the droid from beginning yet _another_ lecture, of course, and Jay let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, I don't know _what_ I was expecting to happen, alright?” He shook his head. “But that was _him_. It had to be.”

A particularly strong gust of wind nearly pushed him over, forcing him to stop speaking. He had to focus instead on simply staying upright; he covered his face with one arm to protect his eyes from the flurry of icy needles attacking his skin.

Finally, the wind calmed back down to its usual roar, and he was able to continue moving forward, however slowly. “I just wonder what he's doing _here_. I mean, if you could choose any planet in the Outer Rim...” He trailed off, turning back to see that R5 had stopped in place a few steps behind him. “Hey, are you listening to me?”

She didn't respond. A hint of unease twisted in Jay's stomach as he noticed that R5's lens was steadily fixed on the horizon, on something he couldn't see. Numbness made his fingers slow and clumsy as he fumbled with the pack on his belt and pulled out a small pair of macrobinoculars to point in the same direction.

“Oh, no.”

There were three speeders approaching, far enough away that their occupants probably hadn't seen him yet, but close enough that it didn't matter; there was nowhere even remotely nearby that he'd be able to hide before being spotted.

With a deep breath, Jay lowered the macrobinoculars, then ordered without looking at R5, “Go home. I'll catch up with you.”

She finally turned toward him, shaking her ocular sensor like a human stubbornly shaking their head, and Jay cast a stern glare in her direction. “Listen to me. If they see you, they will turn you into scrap. I'm not gonna let that happen. You need to go, _now_.”

R5 whirred uncertainly.

“Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I promise.” He flashed a quick grin, which seemed to convince the droid. She turned to the direction of the shelter and started forward, rotating once to look back at Jay. “Keep low and stay out of sight,” he added, with a reassuring nod.

R5 obeyed, dipping altitude so she was nearly skipping across the surface of the snow. Jay watched her go for a few seconds, until she disappeared over a small hill; then, he returned his attention to the more urgent matter at hand.

The speeders were gaining distance at an alarming rate. It wasn't long before Jay could hear the sound of the approaching engines over the roar of the wind; they were headed directly for him, now. He let his eyes close for a moment as they came to a stop a short distance in front of him. When he opened them again, the three riders had dismounted and formed a triangle as they closed the remaining gap on foot: two Arkanians side-by-side a few meters apart, and the one human that was almost certainly their leader standing front and center, close enough for Jay to see the familiar insignia on one of his gloves. The arrangement looked so rehearsed that it was utterly ridiculous, but the sight of the blasters that each of them wore at the hip killed the laugh that rose in Jay's throat.

“Jay Merrick.” The leader gave a quick nod, as if he was greeting an old acquaintance.

“Nope. May Jerrick. You've got the wrong guy,” Jay said without skipping a beat.

The joke was met with nothing but a blank stare, and Jay sighed, his expression turning serious. “Haven't had the pleasure,” he began instead. “You are...?”

Unsurprisingly, the taller human ignored his question. “Where's your droid?”

“Left it behind for the day,” Jay replied evenly. “Didn't want it to rust in the storm.”

“Interesting.” As the human began to pace back and forth in front of him, the other two took slow steps forward, moving to either side of Jay to cut off his escape; an unnecessary precaution, considering the blasters. “If that's the case, would you like to tell me why an associate of ours saw you _and_ the droid in the settlement earlier today?”

“Maybe your associates aren't as reliable as you like to believe,” Jay said with a shrug and crossed his arms, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

“It's unwise to be alone out here,” the leader continued as if Jay hadn't spoken at all. “You know that. And you sent the droid away, because you saw us. You know _exactly_ why we're here.”

Jay took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clouding the frigid air between them. “Alright. Look. I'll stay off your turf from now on. I– I'll even pay you back for all the pieces I've taken,” he added when the other's expression didn't change. He swallowed, hard. “I'm _sorry_.”

“It's too late for that now.” The human finally came to a stop, placing himself directly in front of Jay.

Uneasily, Jay glanced over his shoulder; the other two stood slightly behind him now, closing him in. His hand dropped to his side, hovering just above the handle of a small knife in his pocket, the only weapon he had. “I don't want to fight you,” he stated, cursing himself for the way his voice wavered.

The leader's expression became one of mock innocence. “ _Fight?_ ” He placed one hand over his heart like the accusation shocked him. “Who said anything about a fight?” He flashed a devilish grin, and took a step forward; Jay tensed, clenching his hand into a fist. “We're just here for a simple business conversation.”

He reached forward to clap one heavy hand down on Jay's shoulder. “And besides...” He pulled a stun baton from beneath his coat, twirling it between his fingers and chuckling a bit at the way Jay tried unsuccessfully to wrestle free of his grip.

“Calling it a 'fight' would imply that you had a chance.”

With that, he thrust the end of the baton into Jay's stomach. Even without the charge activated, the blow was enough to bring Jay to his knees; before he had time to think, though, the Arkanians flanking him grabbed either of his arms and roughly dragged him back to his feet, keeping him upright and unable to defend himself.

“Oh, _this_ is fair,” Jay quipped without thinking. Immediately, he regretted the words; he barely registered the movement of the leader's arm before the baton collided squarely with his jaw, sending him reeling. Stars bloomed behind his eyelids, and he let out a groan as the thick taste of blood flooded his mouth.

“ _Fair?_ ” Fingers twisted in his hair and yanked his head back, forcing him to look in the human's eyes as he jabbed the end of the baton into Jay's chest, punctuating his words as he spoke. “ _You_ don't get to determine what's _fair_ after everything you've pulled.”

At that, the hands holding Jay up released him, letting him crumple to the ground. Instinctively, he attempted to stand, to fight or to escape; he only made it as far as pushing himself up to his hands and knees before a swift kick to his stomach forced him back down. With a sharp gasp that turned into a cough halfway through, he settled into the snow, his bleary vision unable to focus on anything but the small splotches of red decorating the white next to his face. It was almost beautiful, he thought, in a strange moment of peace.

The serenity was quickly ruined by the hands that began rifling through his pockets, taking anything that they deemed valuable. Jay remained still, allowing himself to feel grateful that he wasn't being punched or kicked or hit anymore, for the moment at least. However, when the hands gripped his parka, he struggled for a brief moment despite himself. A boot came down hard on his neck to immobilize him, serving as a painful reminder that he was really in no position to argue, and the coat was abruptly ripped away from him. Without it, the icy wind sliced right through the much thinner jacket beneath and into his skin like an impossibly sharp knife, and he shivered, mumbling a breathless curse into the snow.

The crackle of electricity reached his ears.

With a silent appeal to whatever deity might be listening, he braced himself, his hands clenching uselessly into fists in the snow. The leader's boots entered his field of vision and came to a stop a few centimeters from his face, unevenly lit by the blue electricity surging across the surface of the stun baton.

Jay squeezed his eyes shut.


	5. Lost

If his conscience was a limb, Tim would have rid himself of it long ago.

Around six years ago, if he was being specific.

If he wasn't so focused on not freezing to death, he would've stopped just to roll his eyes at that thought, a needless reminder that only proved his point.

But then, he wouldn't begin to compare what he lost back then to the unimportance of the stranger he was searching for now. And yet, here he was, trudging through one of the worst blizzards he'd ever seen.

With a heavy exhale that turned to ice almost before it left his mouth, Tim paused at the top of a snowdrift to survey the landscape through his macrobinoculars.

Logically, the whole venture was ludicrous. Taking his speeder out in such horrible conditions would have merely tempted fate; already, just getting _himself_ back to the shelter alive would likely be a monumental task. He could only imagine how much more difficult it would prove to be – possibly even lethal – if he had to drag a dead speeder back as well after it inevitably stalled at the worst possible moment, as it was prone to doing.

And so, he had abandoned the safety of his shelter on foot, carrying only his lightsaber, binoculars, and a triple-layer of coats that seemed to be doing nothing to keep out the cold. If anything, the layers were only serving to further slow his progress; how he'd ever thought he might catch up to someone with such a significant head start, he wasn't sure.

The unsteady terrain sloped downward suddenly, and Tim stumbled a bit, stopping for a few seconds to regain his balance. His feet had gone numb long ago. From a rational standpoint, it couldn't have been more than an hour since he'd decided to brave the storm; still, for all he knew, he might've already been wandering this special brand of hell for days, weeks, even. It wasn't as if the short days on this blasted planet were any brighter than the much longer nights, anyway.

Grumbling to himself, Tim resumed his painstakingly slow pace.

That damned scavenger had probably made it home hours ago; in all likelihood, he was huddled next to a warm fire, reading a bedtime story to his droid or doing something equally ridiculous, and had already all but forgotten about the strange hermit with the broken speeder.

But something had started to nag at Tim's mind the instant the blizzard began, and he was still annoyingly unable to determine whether it was guilt, anxiety, or something else entirely. Whatever it was, it was unrelenting, like the wind that whipped at his clothes, screaming in his ears and spurring him into action.

The further he walked through the subzero wasteland, however, the less forceful that urgency became, outweighed instead by simple self-preservation.

Tim took a few more slow steps forward, before coming to a stop to scan the horizon one last time with the macrobinoculars. It was no use, of course; he may as well have been staring at a blank white wall.

With a sigh, he finally turned to head back to his shelter. Already, that nagging feeling was back, buzzing faintly inside his skull like a swarm of angry honeydarters. He shook his head, doing his best to ignore the feeling, and took one step before stopping abruptly.

That last noise hadn't come from inside his head.

Still frozen in his tracks, he held his breath, struggling to hear anything at all over the icy wind howling in his ears.

And finally, there it was again: a faint series of beeps emitting from somewhere to his left.

Tim turned toward the noise and took a few staggering steps forward, barely managing to keep his balance against the invisible hand of the storm at his back. As he walked, he closed his eyes – his vision wasn't doing much for him anyway – and focused on the sound, slowly growing louder as he neared its source.

Finally, he neared the top of a small hill, and the beeping stopped. He paused as well. At last, he could sense a presence just on the other side; it didn't _feel_ hostile, though he knew all too well how quickly that could change at the sight of him. This energy felt familiar, however, and he opened his eyes as he took the last few trudging steps forward to confirm his suspicions.

“Of course,” he muttered aloud. And then he was running, as quickly as he could manage, toward the motionless body half-buried in the snow.

Camouflaged as it was by the storm, Tim didn't even see the silver ball hurtling toward him until it was barely a meter away. Instinct took over, and he ducked beneath the projectile, one hand already on the lightsaber at his belt.

He was a millisecond from slicing the thing neatly in half when a mechanical screeching reached his ears. For the second time, he froze in place, just in time for the droid to zip past his ear and wave a small metal arm in his face in what he could only assume was meant to be a threat.

“Hey, calm down,” he began, raising his voice over the racket the droid was making, and raising one arm to move it aside.

It buzzed even louder in response, and Tim took a surprised step back as the appendage in his face began to glow bright red.

“Hey!” With another step back, he shielded his face as a small stream of fire cut through the fog between them. “What kind of idiot puts a _flamethrower_ in a surveillance droid?” he exclaimed aloud.

With another screech, the droid lunged toward Tim's face again, and it took every ounce of self-control to keep him from ripping the offending limb off with his bare hands. “Look, I'm here to _help_ him, alright?”

But the droid was unconvinced; still keeping the flamethrower trained on Tim, it waved its other arm vigorously toward the direction he had come from, and Tim didn't need a translator to understand the meaning.

His right hand twitched for his lightsaber, but he held up his palms instead, doing his best to appear nonthreatening, to show this annoying ball of scrap that he didn't want to hurt its unnamed master...

But wait, the intruder had a name, if Tim could only remember it, of _course_ he'd already forgotten–

“Jay, his name is Jay, right?” he blurted suddenly, to which the droid seemed to hesitate. Seizing the moment, Tim took a small step forward, and relaxed a bit when the droid moved with him rather than trying to light him on fire again. “I'm here to help,” he repeated, a bit of the urgency from before creeping into his voice. “I know you're trying to protect him, but you're not doing him any good if you don't let me help him.”

Finally, after a brief eternity, the droid gave a quiet beep and turned away to dart back over to Jay.

Tim carefully stepped forward. The droid's flamethrower began to glow once more, and Tim tensed; rather than trying to attack him again, though, it lowered its arm to ignite the air above Jay's motionless body, as close to him as it dared, in an obvious attempt to keep him warm.

Tim dropped to his knees beside the scavenger, distantly grateful that the droid had the decency to stop the flames as he approached. He rolled Jay onto his back and brushed the snow away from his alarmingly pale face with one hand, then pressed three nearly-numb fingers to his neck to search for a pulse. “What happened to him?”

The droid made several rapid-fire beeps and moved erratically; it darted forward to hover next to Jay's head, then behind Tim's shoulder, then up above the both of them to look around, still beeping and buzzing at Tim all the while.

“I'm sure that would be _very_ informative if I actually _spoke that!_ ” Tim shouted against the howling wind, his already-limited patience with the heap of junk quickly running out.

After what must have been nearly a full minute, he pulled his hand away from the battered, frozen body before him, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He exhaled in a cloud of fog that obscured his vision for a few seconds.

A hint of movement caught his eye, though; he leaned forward and placed one hand on the front of Jay's jacket, squinting intently at his face and waiting to confirm what he might've seen. Finally, he felt Jay's chest rise almost imperceptibly beneath his hand, and the droid whirred loudly next to his shoulder.

“Alright, I'll just ask _him_ later, then,” Tim interrupted, lifting his head to glance at his surroundings. “How far to your shelter?”

The droid beeped a few times and shook its lens back and forth, dipping toward the direction Tim had come from. Tim cursed under his breath and debated for only a moment before looping his arms under Jay's to lift him out of the snow. With a grunt, he hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulders.

Something bumped into his arm, and he turned to glare at the droid still beeping insistently at him. “Do _you_ want to carry him?” he snapped, his voice strained with effort as he stood up straight. “He needs to get somewhere warm, as fast as possible. If you want to help, shut it and follow me.”

With a final, displeased-sounding buzz, the droid acquiesced; Tim slowly began to make his way back to his shelter, and it followed, regularly alternating between scanning the surrounding area and keeping its sensor fixed on Jay.

The fool was just as light as he appeared, but any weight became unbearable if carried long enough; it wasn't long before every step was a battle. It didn't help that the droid beside him _still_ hadn't stopped buzzing around his head, and he resigned himself to imagining that the incessant beeps in his ears translated into words of encouragement; he no longer had the energy to shut the thing up.

Instead, he could only force himself to keep walking, as he slowly realized with a muttered curse that he was fighting for his own survival now as much as for the unconscious scavenger – _mechanic_ , he corrected himself with a scoff – draped over his shoulders.

“I _knew_ I had a bad feeling about this.”

 


	6. Found

Jay felt like he'd been stepped on by an icetromper.

He groaned, shifting in place, hoping that maybe the unpleasantness he could feel pressing in at the edges of his memory was nothing more than the remnants of a bad dream.

The pain that the movement brought quickly proved otherwise, though. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times, slowly, waiting for his vision to clear. As the blurry haze around him started to form unfamiliar shapes, his heart began to race.

He jerked upright, and his foot struck something heavy, knocking it off of the cot that he found himself sitting on. It clattered to the floor with a screech of protest, alerting the figure across the room in the same instant that Jay noticed him. The man turned to face him, and Jay's blood ran cold.

The Jedi.

Before he could react, a familiar shape rocketed up from the floor to bump into Jay's chest, trilling happily. The reunion did nothing to ease Jay's panic, though; his wide eyes remained fixed on the other human, who was now approaching the two of them. Reflexively, Jay curled his arms tightly around R5, his feet kicking clumsily at the heavy blankets twisted around him in an unsuccessful attempt to put more space between them.

“Easy, easy,” the human in question said, halting his advance a short distance away. “I'm not gonna hurt you. Either of you,” he added quickly, with a glance at the droid clutched in Jay's arms. “Do you know where you are?”

Jay swallowed, allowing his grip on R5 to relax just a bit, and took in his surroundings again, slower this time. “This is your shelter,” he stated hesitantly, to which the other human responded with a nod. “You brought me back here?”

Another nod, and Jay exhaled a bit; he wasn't in immediate danger, then. For now, at least. “I don't know your name,” he blurted out, realizing as he did that he probably shouldn't expect an answer to that.

“I never gave it,” the man stated blankly, then, “it's Tim.”

“Tim,” Jay repeated. R5 wrestled free to hover next to him, and he glanced back and forth between the two, absently placing one hand on his stomach; as the panic faded, the ache from before was returning. “What happened?”

With a heavy sigh, Tim swiveled a nearby chair to face Jay and lowered himself into it. “To be honest, I was going to ask _you_ that question.”

Jay blinked. “I...” His gaze fell to the floor. “I was attacked,” he stated finally, grimacing as the memories flooded to the surface, like blood rushing to a numb limb. “One of the gangs around here didn't like me poking around their territory, so, they...decided to give me a warning, I guess.”

“Not much of a _warning_ ,” Tim commented. Jay looked up, and Tim nodded to the bandages covering his midsection. “A warning to anybody else with the same idea as you, maybe. They left you for dead out there.”

Jay closed his eyes as the words sank in. “Well, y'know.” His voice came out softer than he would've liked, heavy with the realization that this man, who had threatened him with a lightsaber earlier in the day, had saved his life. He shrugged anyway. “Wouldn't be the first time,” he added, with a small laugh.

R5 buzzed her disapproval beside him.

“And then, I guess...” He turned to look at her. “My droid came back for me. Even though I _did_ tell her to go home and wait for me there,” he added sternly, but couldn't hide the grin that spread across his face.

“That's quite a droid.”

Jay glanced at Tim, then back to R5. “S-R5. She's– Originally, she was a surveillance droid, but I modified her to be a bit more...useful, I guess. She can hold tools, and interact with computers...” R5 held up her arm and computer interface in turn as Jay spoke, and he smiled a bit. “And I've had her so long that she's developed a bit of a personality, too.”

“Yes, I learned that firsthand when I went out to find you,” Tim stated, and Jay turned to face him. “It– _she_ hardly wanted to let me near you, regardless of the fact that I was trying to help.”

Jay cringed a bit, and frowned at R5. “Sorry, about that...” he mumbled hesitantly, wringing his hands.

Tim waved a hand dismissively as he stood up. He turned and took one step away; as his foot came down, a metallic _click_ echoed off the walls, and he dropped to one knee. With a grunt, he gripped one arm of the chair and pulled himself up to sit back down. Jay watched silently as Tim pulled off his right boot and rolled up his pant leg to reveal a battered prosthetic. He began fumbling with the knee hinge, exhaling in a frustrated sigh.

“I can help.” Jay practically sprang forward to tinker with the hinge, R5 at his side.

“You fixed one of these before?”

“No.” On the edge of Jay's vision, Tim made a face, and his leg twitched like he wanted to yank it away. “Don't worry, I promise I know what I'm doing,” Jay assured, his hands expertly removing pieces of the casing and setting them aside.

“Looks like the cold got to the central interface,” he mumbled after a quick investigation. “It's out of alignment, so the hinge is pulling it and it's not connecting properly.” Jay held out a hand for the small wrench that R5 produced, then paused, his eyes fixed on the makeshift kitchen setup in the opposite corner. “Actually...” R5 followed his gaze, and zipped across the room to pry away one side of the heating unit without hesitation.

“Hey!” Tim protested, and the prosthetic tensed beneath Jay's hand. “I didn't ask you to dismantle my kitchen. I didn't ask you to do _anything_ , really, so if you wouldn't mind–”

“It won't hurt anything,” Jay interrupted, catching the heating coil that was tossed to him in one hand. “I just need this so I can rig up a little temperature regulation, so the leg won't freeze again. And besides, you only need one of these over there anyway, _right_ , R5?” He glanced meaningfully at R5, who halted her return to his side with a low hum, then turned back toward the kitchen to reroute power to the remaining coil.

As they both began their respective repairs, an uncomfortable silence settled in around the two humans, and Jay suddenly became aware of the situation he'd placed himself in. Focused though he was on the task at hand, his eyes couldn't help flicking up briefly to the lightsaber clipped to Tim's belt; in less than the time it would take him to blink, Tim could easily draw the weapon and slice him into pieces.

For the first time in what must have been years, Jay's hands trembled a bit as he worked.

Nonetheless, it was an easy fix, and in less than sixty seconds Jay was already replacing the slightly rusted casing around the hinge. “There,” he breathed, stopping himself from giving the metal a light pat. “Should be good as new. Well, almost.” He passed the wrench back to R5 and backed away, a bit hastier than he intended, to return to his perch on the cot.

Tim swung his leg forward and back a few times to test it. He looked up at Jay. “You can fix a leg you've never seen before, but you follow a complete stranger out to the wastes with a gang after you and a storm on the way.” He shook his head. “Just what kind of fool are you?”

Jay looked down, wringing his hands; the question didn't sound like an insult, but a real inquiry, seeking a real answer. “I don't always think things through, I guess. But I'm... I'm pretty good at fixing things. It just makes more sense to me; the inside of a droid, or a hyperdrive, or a Repli-Limb. It's all consistent, all made of the same stuff. More predictable than people, at least.” He shrugged, then looked up at Tim once more. “Why did you save me?”

For a few seconds, Tim didn't respond, and Jay shifted nervously, worried that he'd said something wrong, something that would get him thrown right back out into the bitter cold. Finally, though, Tim opened his mouth to respond with a question of his own: “Why did you follow me?”

Jay's gaze dropped to the floor again. “When I was young,” he began, softly, searching for the right words, “my parents used to tell me stories about the Jedi. How they were the guardians of peace in the galaxy, in an era of light. Now, they're both gone, and so are the Jedi. The Empire destroyed them all. All but one.”

He exhaled. “People say that one Jedi was able to escape, and one day he's going to come back. That he'll put an end to the Empire, and all the injustice in the galaxy. He'll set everything right.”

His eyes met Tim's. “It's _you_ , isn't it? You're the last Jedi.”

Tim blinked slowly. “Those are just stories.”

Jay shook his head. “Not to me.”

Another heavy silence set in. Finally, Tim stood and turned his back to Jay. “The blizzard still hasn't let up,” he stated. “You and your droid can stay here until it does. Then, I'll give you a ride back to your shelter.” He took a few steps away, toward the kitchen.

“And your speeder–”

“Is no longer an issue.” He stopped speaking for a moment, and Jay craned his neck, trying unsuccessfully to see what he was doing. “It will last me long enough to get to the spaceport on the other side of the settlement, and I don't need anything beyond that. I'm getting off this planet.” Tim walked back to his chair, now carrying two bowls of a steaming soup, and handed one to Jay.

“You're leaving?” Jay repeated, cringing at the way his voice wavered around the words.

Tim didn't seem to notice, though. “You're not the only one who believes those stories, but you _are_ the first one who hasn't tried to kill me as a result.” He exhaled heavily. “Today, I just painted a huge bullseye on my back. I don't really want to stick around for target practice.”

Jay nodded slowly. He took a small sip of the broth, then instantly followed it up with a huge gulp, all attempts at conversation forgotten. The soup was unbelievably rich, and hot enough to burn his mouth, and he reveled in the sensation. On the edge of his vision, Tim was watching him with a trace of amusement dancing in his eyes, but the warmth in Jay's stomach felt so divine that he was beyond caring. How long had it been since he'd had a hot meal? _Hot_ , and not just warmed to a temperature barely above freezing?

“You may want to think about doing the same.”

Tim's voice broke him out of his trance; with a bit of reluctance, he lowered the bowl, self-consciously wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, and met Tim's eyes.

“That gang probably thinks you're dead,” Tim elaborated, absently drumming his fingers on the metal of his leg. “And something tells me that they're probably not the most forgiving people. They see you again, they may try to finish the job.”

Jay grimaced. He was right, of course; odds were that his shelter had already been picked clean and “renovated.” There would be nothing left for him on Saqqar. But...

“I...just, uh,” he shot a glance at R5, then looked down. “I don't really have anywhere to go.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, accompanied by the roar of the wind outside. Jay kept his gaze locked to the floor and listened to Tim's breathing; his own heart raced in his chest as he recited his next words in his head, over and over, fighting for the courage to push them past his lips. _What if I went with you?_

“What, uh...” The sentence died in his throat as he suddenly became aware that Tim wasn't listening to him anymore. Instead, his eyes were distant, his attention focused on the howling wind.

It wasn't wind at all, Jay realized slowly; he hadn't even noticed until now, caught up in his own thoughts as he was.

“What is that?” he asked aloud, in the same moment that Tim got to his feet and darted outside, one hand on his lightsaber. Jay exchanged a quick glance with R5, then zipped up his jacket and stood to follow, limping a bit and waving away the droid's beep of concern.

The blizzard was no more forgiving than it had been before. Jay kept one hand on the wall of the structure behind him for support; through the curtain of snow, he could just make out Tim's silhouette, barely a meter from where he was standing. Beyond that, a vague gray mass was visible, only a few shades darker than the gray fog obscuring his vision.

“Is that...a ship?” Jay took a few labored steps forward, but Tim held out an arm to stop him.

“Stay where you are!” Tim shouted over the storm, and Jay began to protest, to point out that he was already standing still, before he realized that Tim wasn't speaking to him.

He squinted and held up a hand in a futile attempt to shield his eyes. His heart skipped a beat as another silhouette slowly began to take shape, moving closer despite Tim's warning, one arm shielding its face and the other held up in surrender.

“I said stay _back!_ ” Tim repeated, taking a small step back himself as the figure continued to close the distance between them. R5 whirred uncertainly next to Jay's ear, but he stood frozen to the spot, overcome by a curiosity that only intensified as his eyes focused on the helmet that the orange-clad figure was wearing.

Finally, they came to a stop, a few steps away. For a moment, everyone was still; then, the newcomer placed a hand on either side of their helmet. On the edge of his vision, Jay saw Tim tense at the movement, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the cascade of brown hair that poured over the figure's shoulders as the helmet was removed, revealing a wide-eyed human blinking against the sleet assaulting her face.

“Who are you?” Jay blurted dumbly, to which the human smiled, her brown eyes fixed intently on Tim.

“My name is Jessica Locke, and I need you to come with me.”

 


	7. A Warm Welcome

Jessica couldn't have known what to expect, but this wasn't it.

* * *

 

“ _No?”_

_She could feel every eye in the room locked onto her; still, she stood, unmoving, her arms crossed. “No,” she repeated._

“ _Jessica...” the general began, breaking eye contact to pace behind the holo map rotating slowly in the center of the room. “I know you don't believe in the old legends. I'm not asking you to. But think about the ones that_ do _. Think about what this could mean to them, what you'd be giving to everyone, if this report is true.”_

“If _,” Jessica echoed, her voice intense. “_ If _this report is true, and_ if _this man is even a Jedi at all, and_ if _he even cares about the horrors that have been plaguing us all while he's been off in hiding doing who knows what...” She shook her head as the general began to approach her, fixing her gaze instead on the flickering map image. Rage burned in her throat suddenly and intensely at the bright yellow dot in the center; she swallowed the majority, and channeled the remainder into her words as she continued, “I'd still be bringing back just one man. One! And why should_ he _be given so much more significance than any one of the hundreds–_ thousands _of soldiers that have given their lives in this fight?”_

“ _It's not just one man.” The general's voice was soft, despite the venom in Jessica's voice. “It's a rallying cry. An affirmation that the Force really_ is _with us, that all those lives weren't lost in vain.” Gently, she placed a hand on Jessica's shoulder. “It's a reason to_ keep _fighting.”_

_For the first time, Jessica glanced around the room; at the strategists, the pilots, the ragtag smugglers and defectors that had once served the Empire, the battle-hardened veterans whose weariness shone on their faces and the new recruits who very well knew that their first battle could easily be their last._

_Finally, her gaze returned to the general. In all of their eyes, she could see the same faint spark._

“ _Hope,” Jessica said, the word almost a whisper._

_The general nodded, and smiled. “It's not everything, no. But it's a start.”_

* * *

 

“What do you mean 'no'?” Jessica's voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of the wind roaring outside. She had to wonder how anyone ever had conversations in this awful place, if Saqqar was always this _loud_.

“I don't want to make any assumptions about your understanding of Basic, but the meaning of the word 'no' is pretty common knowledge.” The darker-haired human – the Jedi, the entire reason she had come to this frozen wasteland of a planet, whose name he'd reluctantly given as Tim – crossed his arms. He was leaning against the wall, almost casually, but his stance was just a bit too forced, his right hand clenched into a tight fist, his jaw set, every subtlety in his posture screaming that he was tensed for a fight. And if he was even half of all he'd been made out to be, Jessica likely wouldn't stand a chance.

But she wasn't afraid; she'd faced much worse odds before.

“I'm here for one reason, and that reason is you,” she began. “The Resistance needs you.” In her peripheral vision, the other human still hadn't stopped fidgeting; his chair creaked, interrupting her for a moment. She hadn't asked his name. It wasn't particularly important. “If you weren't at least _minimally_ interested in what I have to say, you wouldn't have let me in at all.”

“I only let you in so we wouldn't all freeze to death outside,” Tim stated. He paused for a moment, then muttered, “And because I didn't feel like shouting.” He shook his head. “And I _still_ don't, so please, just make this easier on everybody. Get back in your ship, go back to wherever it is that you came from, and just...try not to say anything about this to anybody. For _your_ sake as well as mine,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Jessica's eyes narrowed. “I did _not_ travel halfway across the galaxy just to turn around and go back empty-handed.” She took a step forward.

Tim abruptly stood up straight; one hand gripped the lightsaber that she'd noticed previously at his belt, and she froze.

“I'm not asking,” he stated simply.

Jessica took a deep breath in, then let it out. “Suit yourself.” With a shrug, she turned to leave, then paused just a step short of the doorway. “But keep in mind,” she added over her shoulder, without looking directly at Tim. “If _I_ found you, the Empire probably won't be far behind, and I doubt their offer will be so friendly.” She shook her head. “And I can guarantee you that _they_ won't take 'no' for an answer.”

And with that, she stepped out into the storm, cursing under her breath as the force of the wind nearly knocked her off her feet. Out of habit, she almost reached for the comm clipped to her belt, but let her arm drop to her side with a sigh.

There was no one here to listen.

Instead, she trudged toward the Hornet, already mentally piecing together her report. _Saqqar: just as empty as it's always been. No Jedi to be found, as far as we should be concerned. I won't say I told you so, but then again–_

“Hey, wait!”

The shout lit an uncharacteristic flicker of hope, for just an instant, before she turned to see its source. Instead of the stubborn Jedi, she found herself face-to-face with the taller of the two humans; this one seemed to be nothing but skin and bones, an almost laughably lightweight brown jacket the only thing shielding him from the harsh conditions. A small spherical droid hovered beside him, a bit unsteadily in the turbulence of the storm.

Jessica waited in silence and a bit of impatience for the man to catch his breath before he finally continued. “You're with the Resistance?”

She blinked. Wondered if he was joking. “Yes, I am.” She tried not to sound too condescending, but it didn't matter anyway; the wind stole the words away, and she simply nodded instead. Her gaze fell to his hands as he clasped them together, fidgeting nervously and visibly shivering from the cold.

“My name is Jay, and I'm– I know I'm not...” He paused as a particularly strong gust of wind drowned him out, then began again, louder this time. “I'm not what you're looking for, but I think I could help. The Resistance, I mean. I'm...”

Jessica's vision slipped out of focus. Jay was speaking, still, but any meaning the words might have carried died in the fog between them; instead, a sickening sense of dread washed over her, tightening her hands into fists and making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She whirled around, focusing suddenly and intently on the roaring wind that was beginning to sound less and less like wind with each passing second, her eyes locked on the skies above, then flicking back down as Jay stepped into her field of vision.

“Hey, are you... Are you alright?”

But she barely heard him at all over the bone-chilling noise, growing louder and louder until it was unmistakable. A silent curse left her lips; another cut through the frigid air in a shout as Tim burst from the shelter behind them.

“You!” She turned to meet his glare. “You led them right to us!” he accused, stomping through the snow toward her.

“What is it?” Jay glanced back and forth between the two with wide eyes.

Jessica envied his ignorance; only someone who had never heard the sound would be unable to recognize it immediately. “TIE fighter,” she hissed, her eyes still locked on Tim. “Both of you need to come with me, _now_.”

Tim bristled, but nodded once. “Come on,” he growled, motioning for Jay to follow as Jessica broke into a sprint back to the ship.

“R5, hurry!” Jay called breathlessly.

Jessica dared to glance over her shoulder as she ran. Against the dreary gray sky above, she could almost make out the dark silhouette of the fighter as it grew closer, much too fast; she found herself praying that the incessant storm would be enough to shroud them from view.

Of course, luck never seemed to be on her side, and this time was no different; as the trio finally reached the safety of the freighter and she paused to raise the entrance ramp, the TIE fighter darted overhead before leaning into a turn and lowering altitude.

“They've seen us!” Jessica shoved past the others in a rush to the cockpit. “They're about to make a firing run, and they're probably not alone. Can you shoot?” She tossed an earpiece to the Jedi.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I mean, just because I'm here doesn't mean I want to–”

“We don't have time to argue about this,” Jessica stated as she slid into the pilot's seat, methodically flipping switches faster than the eye could follow. “I'm down a gunner and you've got your magic voodoo, so I need you to do whatever it is that you do and keep those fighters off us.”

“Listen, you can't expect me to just fight _your_ battles on demand. I'm not...” He trailed off as Jessica shot him a deadly glare.

“You can complain about this later, but only if we survive that long. Want to help our chances? Get in the damned gunner's seat.”

With a grumbled insult that she elected to ignore, the Jedi finally obeyed, leaving his companion to hover beside her, wringing his hands. “What can I do?”

Jessica shook her head and gripped the controls. “Hold on tight.”

The engine roared to life, and in less than ten seconds the ship was airborne. Jessica's fingers tapped a few contacts on the middle console to activate the thermal scanner; with the storm still raging, there was no other way she'd be able to see the incoming attackers until it was much too late.

Keeping her eyes on the display screen, she pitched the ship forward, immediately banking into a sharp turn to avoid the twin laser cannons of the rapidly approaching TIE fighter. The movement nearly threw Jay across the cockpit; as the ship leveled out, he took the opportunity to strap himself into the copilot's seat, and Jessica cast a quick glance at him before returning her attention to the more urgent matter at hand.

“How many of them are there?” he asked, craning his neck to see the display.

“Three.” Jessica steered the ship into another turn, darting around the stone spire of the Jedi's shelter.

Upon realizing that the Jedi in question still hadn't fired a single shot, she leaned forward to speak into the comm. “Once you have a lock, use the trigger on the right to fire.”

“I got it!” he shouted.

“Do you?” she shouted back.

In response, the rear turret fired four shots in rapid succession; all met nothing but empty air, though, and Jessica bit down on another shout. The other two fighters were closing in quickly along with the first. One, she could have outrun, but three?

Gripping the control yoke tighter, she leaned forward again, this time to peer through the viewport at the practically indiscernible ground below.

“What are you looking for?”

Jessica's hand twitched. She tried not to be annoyed by Jay; he obviously just wanted to help. “We need cover. We're just sitting ducks out in the open like this.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him lean forward as well. “There is... There's a trench, a really big drop-off, that way.” He pointed.

“How can you be sure?” A hard hit on their shield rocked the ship, and Jessica quickly decided against waiting on an answer. She steered in the direction Jay was pointing, her eyes darting back and forth between the barely visible terrain ahead and the display screen. Finally, just when she was ready to abandon the plan altogether, the ground dropped out from beneath them in a wide trench; Jessica lowered altitude and banked to one side just before hitting the opposite cliff wall.

The maneuver worked, if only marginally; one of the fighters roared overhead, missing the trench entirely. The other two followed them down, weaving rather effortlessly around the blaster fire from the rear gun. One blast hit the cliff wall in a powerful yet useless burst, and Jessica mashed the comm button again. “Are you actually going to _hit_ anything back there, or are you too busy keeping the space _around_ them from attacking us?”

“Why don't you just focus on flying without blowing us all to bits–” A particularly narrow miss from one of the fighters shook the ship. “You're doing a _great_ job at that, by the way!”

“One of us has to,” Jessica muttered under her breath. “Hang on!”

The ship arced upwards briefly before looping into a nosedive straight down, the underside only a few meters from the uneven wall of the cliff. Both TIE fighters followed, and Jessica tightened her grip on the controls once more.

She counted to three, then glanced at her temporary copilot. “So, quick question, no rush,” she began in a conversational tone. “When you said this drop-off was 'really big', exactly how far down is–”

“Pull up now!” he ordered in a panicked shout.

Jessica obeyed, quick reflex the only thing that kept them from crashing into the dark mass of rock at the bottom of the trench. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding as one of the fighters became a bright fireball on the thermal scanner.

“I can't believe they even tried to follow us,” Jay mused beside her.

“That's because they're AI, without much emphasis on the 'I',” Jessica explained quickly, zigzagging back toward the cliff as the fighter that had survived resumed the chase. “Humanoid pilots are too valuable; Empire wouldn't send them to a system this far out without a confirmed report.”

“They're droids?” came a crackling shout over the comm.

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Yes, and if I need any more echoes I'll let you know.”

Almost before she could finish the sentence, a fresh round of blaster fire erupted from the ship's rear turret. Another explosion bloomed on the edge of the display, indicating that one of the shots found its mark.

Jessica's eyes narrowed, and she turned in her seat to yell directly at Tim rather than through the comm. “Were you missing on _purpose_?”

“Watch out!” Jay shouted.

She whipped her head back around and narrowly avoided a collision with the third TIE fighter as it finally caught up. But she couldn't dodge the blaster fire; it was a direct hit, one that would have been the end of a ship without a deflector shield.

The hit sent them careening downward. Distantly, Jessica could hear voices shouting, through the comm and in the cockpit, but everything inside her was focused on nothing but the reactionary maneuver that would be their only chance at cheating death.

She didn't fire the secondary thrusters to slow their descent; she'd need the momentum. Instead, she let them free fall, waiting, waiting for just the right moment...

The fighter above was preparing to fire again, and the ground was rushing up to meet them, visible even through the density of the storm, when Jessica activated the left-side thrusters, spinning the ship around like a wheel and lining their attacker up perfectly with the front turret. She fired, two quick shots, which found their mark easily; then she jumpstarted the ship out of its spin with the full power of all the thrusters, rocketing them upward as the TIE fighter crashed in an explosion of sparks below.

Jay pumped a fist in the air with a cheer, and Jessica couldn't hide a small smile as she leveled out the ship above the trench. His enthusiasm was a bit infectious, she had to admit.

A red light beneath the thermal scanner flashed twice, and her smile quickly disappeared.

“Don't celebrate just yet, four more of them inbound,” she relayed, to a wordless grunt of frustration from her reluctant gunner.

“Four?” Jay leaned forward to squint through the viewport, as if the hostiles would be readily visible through the sea of gray. “Where are they coming from?”

The light flashed again, and Jessica gritted her teeth. “I don't know, but let's not find out.” She reached overhead to punch a new set of coordinates into the nav com; an alarm shrieked in the cockpit, adding newfound urgency to her movements. “Beginning calculations for the jump to hyperspace.”

“Hyper... We're– Wait a second!” The stammering over the comm began at the same time the blasts from the rear gun abruptly ceased.

Jessica ignored both; she pulled up sharply, relying fully on the ship's sensors rather than her own eyes to tell her which way that was. As the incoming fighters closed in, she tilted the ship into a zigzagging pattern to dodge their fire, pushing the thrusters to their limit as the clouds grew thinner and thinner until, with one last violent tremor, the ship was finally free of the planet's atmosphere and the openness of space was visible through the residually foggy transparisteel.

Above her head, the nav com beeped twice. Behind her, a cacophony of angry protests and stumbling footsteps approached, unsteady as the artificial gravity kicked in.

Jessica placed one hand on the hyperdrive control. “Everybody hold on!”

She pushed the lever forward, and the stars smeared into thin lines until the darkness of space gave way to nothing but bright light, leaving the TIE fighters in the metaphorical dust.

Only then did Jessica allow herself to relax, as the blue corridor stretched out before her in mesmerizing patterns, wrapping itself around the ship in its familiar embrace, welcoming her home.

 


	8. Emergency

That stunt could've killed him.

Tim got to his feet; he'd been on his way to the cockpit when the jump to hyperspace had thrown him violently to the floor of the ship.

With a huff, he resumed the short trek, stopping just inside the cockpit as the obviously annoyed pilot stood up to meet him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he began.

“What's wrong with _me_? What's wrong with _you!_ ” Jessica punctuated the question by jabbing a finger into Tim's shoulder. “Your messing around with those TIE fighters nearly got us all killed!”

“Those fighters were only a problem because you led them here in the first place!” Tim retorted. “Besides, I don't recall asking for a ride off the planet.”

“But weren't you just about to–” Jay began, but Tim quickly shut him up with a glare.

“Listen,” Jessica said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I didn't ask to be stuck with _you_ , either, but here we are.”

“You didn't– Are you– You just– _What!_ ” Tim sputtered, at a loss for words.

“Guys...” Jay interjected softly, but Tim was in no mood for diplomacy.

“ _No_ ,” he finally said, his voice quieter than before but no less forceful. “We are _not_ stuck with each other, because I'm not spending one more second than necessary on your glorious piece of junk.”

Jessica's eyes narrowed, but he continued, unfazed. “You're going to take us to the nearest inhabited system, and that's where we part ways.”

Jessica waited for him to finish, her arms crossed defiantly. “So that's it?”

“That's it.”

“You won't even hear me out?”

“Nope.”

She shook her head. “You've been stuck under a rock somewhere for way too long.”

“Listen, can we just–” Jay tried to interrupt again, but Jessica continued as if he hadn't spoken at all.

“My mission is to bring you back, and that's _it_ ,” she stated, sounding more and more like a corrupted hologram, reduced to repeating the same statement for all eternity. “I don't care what you do from there, but–”

“ _Mission?_ ” Tim repeated incredulously, cutting her off. “I couldn't care less about your _mission_ , especially when it involves literal _kidnapping_ –”

“Well, _some_ of us are able to see past ourselves and realize there's a whole galaxy out there that needs our _help_ –”

“If this is your idea of help–“

“Can both of you _shut up_ for a second and _listen?_ ”

The sudden outburst was enough to make them both pause, and turn to face Jay.

However, rather than giving a motivational speech about teamwork as Tim anticipated, Jay simply turned back around in his seat to face the viewport next to him, wearing an odd expression.

“...What are we listening to?” Jessica asked finally.

Jay held up a finger to shush her. “Don't you hear it?” he breathed after a few moments.

“I don't hear anything,” she stated, lowering her voice to match his.

“ _Exactly_ ,” he said in a reverent whisper. “It's so _quiet_.”

Behind him, Tim and Jessica exchanged a look. “Space is quiet,” Tim agreed.

“I mean, there's no wind or _anything_ ,” Jay pressed a hand to the transparisteel, “even with how fast we're moving.” His head whipped around. “How fast _are_ we moving?”

Tim gestured toward Jessica, directing the question to her; she blinked, then stepped forward to sit in the pilot's seat, a smile spreading across her face to mirror Jay's. “Well, 'fast' is really a relative term, so it's hard to apply it to hyperspace. But, at this rate, we'll arrive in the Corellian system within about twelve hours.

Jay's eyes widened. “Twelve _hours?_ ”

“The _Corellian_ system?” Tim repeated in the same instant. “No, _no_. Not happening.”

Jessica's smile disappeared, but she didn't raise her voice when she spoke again. “You don't want to be there? Fine. I don't want you there either,” she said, with a bit of a shrug. Her tone was almost casual; she was obviously done arguing. “But I didn't come all this way just to be your messenger. If you can't be bothered to help, then _you_ will tell the general yourself when we get to Corellia, and _then_ you can disappear and go back to being just as useless as you were before.” With that, she turned back toward the viewport, effectively ending the discussion.

Tim opened his mouth to fight back, but then let out a heavy breath. “Fine,” he relented. “But that doesn't mean we need to spend the next twelve hours socializing.” He turned toward the narrow hallway he'd come from, ready to find a cabin or storage hatch or some other compartment where he could enjoy some peace for the duration of the trip – even better if it had a locking door – but stopped when Jay stood suddenly, looking alarmed.

“Where's R5?”

“R5?” Jessica asked.

“My droid,” he replied, and shook his head at the suddenly sympathetic expression on Jessica's face. “No, no, we didn't leave her behind, she's here on the ship, it's just, she isn't really designed for space travel,” he continued, answering her unspoken question.

“She might have fallen below deck,” Jessica said, looking thoughtful, then stood to brush past Tim and disappear down the ramp to the cargo deck.

Tim stood there for a moment, watching Jay stoop to check beneath the numerous control panels in the cockpit, before finally retreating toward the back of the ship with a sigh. Momentarily, he considered a quick lie to make his exit less rude – why, of _course_ he was just going to search the rest of the ship for that _lovable_ little limmie ball, he wouldn't _rest_ until he found it – but couldn't really bring himself to care enough for that.

Instead, he found a small seating area behind the gun well, and he plopped himself down on one end of it, running a hand through his hair.

What a fine mess this was.

Only a few hours before, his biggest problem had just been trying to find a part for his swoop bike – _blast_ , he'd completely forgotten about that speeder, left behind on that forsaken rock – and now he was on his way across the galaxy, to the damned _Inner_ _Core_ of all places.

And what would this _general_ expect of him?

He exhaled, rubbing his eyes.

At the very least, if Jessica was to be believed, they'd take him at his word when he refused to join their little suicide pact. Maybe they'd even provide him with transport back to the Outer Rim; after all, he seemed to be rather popular among those who opposed the Empire. Maybe he'd get the celebrity treatment just for that.

The ever-present weight of the saber on his belt felt heavier than usual.

Nothing more than a result of the artificial gravity, he decided.

Something bumped into his leg, and he looked down to find a silver ball staring back from the floor. Tim blinked, and it seemed to do the same, its ocular sensor clicking softly as it focused on him.

With a sigh, he pointed toward the cockpit. “He's that way.”

The droid gave two quick beeps; a small arm emerged from its side to push off of the floor, and then it was rolling in that direction, off to find Jay.

Jay.

Tim rubbed his eyes again. He had to wonder what Jay's role in all of this would be. As far as the Resistance was concerned, he wasn't much more than a stowaway, extra baggage that got dragged in along with their oh-so-important Jedi. What would happen to him when Tim spoke to this general and they all parted ways?

Of course, if the choice was solely Jay's, where he'd go from there was fairly clear; it had been obvious from the moment that he'd chased Jessica out into the snowstorm without a second thought, just minutes after Tim had suggested leaving Saqqar. For what had to be the tenth time that day, Tim found himself wondering how Jay had survived this long; he was far too impressionable for his own good, and Tim had little doubt that it would get him killed one day.

Especially if he followed through with joining the Resistance.

Something twinged in his stomach at that thought – guilt? worry? – but he shook his head again. Jay wasn't his responsibility. If he wanted to go and get himself killed, well, that was his business.

But Tim wasn't interested in meeting a similar fate.

The sound of footsteps shook him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see the mechanic in question approaching, a small silver ball tucked under one arm.

“Hey,” Jay paused to readjust his grip on R5, to a displeased-sounding beep. “You okay?”

The question caught Tim off-guard. “What... What do you mean?”

With a shrug, Jay sank into the chair across from Tim. “You just seemed...upset, earlier,” he elaborated, choosing his words rather cautiously.

Tim tried to force a laugh, but it came out more like a scoff. “Don't worry about me.” He shifted in the seat, and that same trace of worry or guilt or whatever it was returned. “I should ask _you_ that, actually,” he said, nodding to a small scrape above Jay's eyebrow that had formerly been covered by a bacta patch. “That was a long run to the ship, and you probably aren't in any kind of condition for sudden exertion like that.”

Jay shrugged again, but it was a bit too quick this time; he couldn't hide the hint of a grimace that pulled at the corners of his eyes.

With an exasperated sigh, Tim got to his feet, shrugging his pack off his shoulder – at least he'd had the sense to grab _that_ , at least he'd already been packed and ready to leave on his own terms – and dug out a small canister of bacta salve.

“Hold still,” he instructed, and Jay obeyed as Tim dabbed a bit of the salve over the cut.

“That smells terrible,” Jay said, wrinkling his nose at the sickly-sweet odor.

“You're not wrong,” Tim agreed, “but by the end of the day that'll be healed, so I think you can probably deal with it.” He replaced the canister in his bag and returned to his seat, then gestured to Jay's torso, the dark bruises and cracked ribs hiding beneath bandages and clothes, wounds that would require a full bacta tank rather than the limited supplies Tim had on hand. “But that, I can't do much for, so just don't push it and it won't hurt so much.”

“I've had worse,” he replied with a grin, entirely too lighthearted considering the subject matter, and Tim had to smile a bit. R5 buzzed in Jay's lap, and he placed a hand on top of her casing. “I know, I know.”

Tim's eyes drifted elsewhere: to the ship's miniscule galley, that looked like it hadn't been used in ages; to the two doors further down, likely leading to the cabins he was searching for earlier; to the gun well, the ladder leading to the tiny space where he'd spent his first several minutes on the ship.

His smile slowly faded, and with a deep breath, he leaned forward. “Jay...”

A violent tremor cut him off. From the front of the ship, an alarm sounded, and his and Jay's heads snapped up in unison.

Tim reacted first; he rushed to the cockpit, to find Jessica already darting back and forth between control panels. “What's happening?” he shouted over the deafening alarm.

“Something's wrong with the hyperdrive.” She pushed past him to check one of the flashing screens, swore, then pushed past him again to slide into the pilot's seat. “One of those hits on Saqqar must have fried the regulator, we're overheating.”

“Can you fix it?” The ship shook again, and Tim gripped the back of her seat to stay on his feet.

“Not while we're _using_ it!” She tapped a few buttons on the nav com above her head.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

“We gotta take a side trip, we can't stay in hyperspace much longer or things are gonna get real toasty real fast.” She paused as the screen cycled through several different systems. “Ishanna is close. We'll have to make an emergency landing on Ishanna V, should be able to make some repairs there.”

Tim watched her flip a few more switches as the words registered. “When you say 'emergency landing'...”

She gripped the hyperdrive control. “Hang on to something.”

Without hesitation, he sank into the copilot seat, before freezing in place. “Jay!” he called over his shoulder. “Strap yourself down back there, it's about to get bumpy!”

A distant beep from R5, barely audible over the still-blaring alarm, was the only response he received, but he accepted it as a sign that he had at least been heard. Whether Jay actually listened would remain to be seen, but Tim didn't have much time left to think about that.

Jessica pulled the lever down, pulling the ship out of hyperspace. The bright tunnel before them gave way to a blue-green planet, rushing toward them, entirely too close and too fast for comfort.

Another alarm sounded, this one from somewhere behind Tim. “What _now_? We're not in hyperspace anymore!”

“I don't know!” The control yoke was shaking beneath Jessica's hands along with the rest of the ship as they entered the atmosphere.

“I've got a pretty good idea what the problem is!” came a shout from behind them.

With a muttered string of curses and a bit of difficulty given the unsteadiness of the ship, Tim lifted himself from the chair and made his way toward the back of the freighter, ready to lecture Jay for trying to fix it mid-flight rather than just staying put like he was told.

But the sight that greeted him was much, much worse.

“So things aren't great back here.” Jay held R5 in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other, sweeping it back and forth across the flames that had erupted from the hyperdrive and spread to what Tim could only assume was the power core. As usual, Jay spoke rather casually, but in his eyes was thinly veiled terror, which only intensified as the ship lurched violently, nearly throwing them both off their feet.

Tim stumbled forward to grab the extinguisher; with his other hand, he gripped Jay's shoulder and shoved him toward a seat. “Hold on tight!” he ordered.

The shout was echoed by Jessica from the cockpit. Struggling to keep his balance as the ship began to tilt to the side, Tim resumed Jay's fight with the fire. He could hear more shouting from somewhere, but it was barely audible and nigh unintelligible beneath the alarms still dutifully blaring in his ears.

As a result, he only just heard Jessica's warning to brace for impact an instant before he was thrown against the far wall and everything went black.

 


	9. Detour

“Everybody okay back there?”

Jay opened his eyes, and slowly released his grip on R5, wincing a bit at the indents left on his hands. He realized gradually that his face was pressed to the floor, and, shaking a bit, he pushed himself up and gave himself a quick mental once-over. Nothing hurt any worse than it had before – not _significantly_ worse, anyway – so it seemed that by some miracle, he was indeed okay.

He opened his mouth to declare as much when his eyes found the unconscious Jedi facedown on the floor a few feet away.

“Tim!”

Without another thought, Jay scrambled forward to roll him onto his back. Tim didn't stir at the movement, which only served to fuel the panic buzzing behind Jay's eyes. A different buzzing alerted him to R5's presence, hovering just above his head, and distantly, Jay noted that that meant they were back on solid ground.

The crash landing had been proof enough of that, though.

At the sound of footsteps behind him, Jay moved aside to let Jessica approach, keeping his eyes locked on Tim. Despite how still he remained, his chest rose and fell steadily, and Jay let out a relieved breath of his own.

He allowed himself to relax a bit more as Jessica checked Tim's pulse and turned his head to survey his injuries; her movements were quick and methodical, clinical almost, and Jay was comforted by the knowledge that at least one of them knew what they were doing.

Oddly, he wanted to hope that the spark of concern he could see in her eyes wasn't purely selfish, that she was worried for Tim not just because he was the object of her mission, but he shook off the thought as irrelevant.

“He'll be alright,” Jessica stated after a moment. She stood up and turned her attention to the ship's condition instead, with a heavy sigh. “What a mess.”

“The fire spread to the power core,” Jay said, fully aware that he was stating the obvious. “Started in the hyperdrive, but I'm guessing you knew that already.”

Jessica responded with an absent nod as she pried open the slightly charred casing of the hyperdrive in question.

“I've got some experience fixing Corellian ships, if you need any help.” Jay took a small step forward, wringing his hands, as R5 hummed softly in agreement. “Although I've... I've never seen the inside of a VCX model up close like this. Not in person, anyway. No one has them this far out, and anyone who does never sticks around for long.”

“Well, you're not missing much right now.” Jessica swept the hair out of her eyes with a frustrated exhale. “It's all fried.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “We're stuck here, then?”

Jessica shook her head and brushed past Jay to frown at a flickering display on the wall behind him. “Getting the ship up and running again won't be hard. Everything that was damaged by the fire can be patched up, at least until we get to the base for actual repairs. We'll need a new power core, of course, but that won't be an issue, it's pretty generic. It's the regulator that's the issue.” She rubbed her temples with one hand. “Without a new one, we won't make it very far without running into the same overheating problem that brought us here.”

“So...what do we do?”

She took a deep breath and cast her eyes downward for a long moment. “Can I trust you to stay with the ship?” she asked by way of reply, and Jay could hear the unspoken question beneath the words. _Can I trust you to keep him from leaving?_

With a glance at the unconscious Jedi between them, he nodded once, twisting his face into an expression that he hoped resembled confidence.

Jessica didn't look wholly convinced, but accepted his answer nonetheless. “Shouldn't be too much to ask, anyway,” she said with a quick shrug as she disappeared around a corner. “The air here isn't what I would call breathable.”

Jay blinked and shared a quick glance with R5 before following. “Wait, uh...” He paused at the bottom of the ramp to the cargo deck; now that they weren't in a mad rush to take off, he had a chance to take in the sight more thoroughly. The bay was mostly empty, with only a few large crates stacked and fastened in place a bit haphazardly on the far side. Momentarily, he wondered whether Jessica had already left the ship, but the sound of rummaging behind one of the crates answered the question for him.

“Where exactly are we?” he asked as he approached, craning his neck in an unsuccessful attempt to see what she was doing.

“Ishanna V.” A smaller crate slid out from behind the one Jessica was digging through, along with a slowly growing pile of equipment, most of which Jay didn't recognize. “Not exactly the most civilized place in the galaxy, but in our case, that's probably a good thing. Empire's hard to hide from, even all the way out here,” she paused, then grumbled, “especially after all the theatrics on Saqqar.”

A strange guilt twisted in Jay's stomach at the mention of his home planet. He quickly shook it off; none of that fiasco had been his fault. If anything, his knowledge of the terrain had helped them _escape_ , hadn't it?

Although, if it hadn't been for him, Tim would have been long gone before the Empire had closed in on him. Or the Resistance, for that matter.

Lost in his thoughts as he was, it took Jay several seconds to notice that Jessica was no longer in the cargo bay. In the same moment, he caught a glimpse of golden light flooding into the ship from the direction of the exit ramp.

“Stay on the ship,” Jessica ordered as he approached, her voice muffled by the oxygen mask now strapped to her face. And without another word, she punched a button to her right, sealing the airlock between them and blocking his view.

He had to fight the sudden, intense impulse to disobey, to open the airlock and follow, consequences be damned, if only for a momentary glance at the world outside, a planet that was completely new and alien and undoubtedly dangerous to him.

Instead, he scrambled back up the ramp to the cockpit, barely even noticing the curious trilling of R5 following closely behind him; he was too focused on what he could see as he approached the viewport, the view mostly obscured by a large formation of dark gray rocks several meters from the ship, until he got close enough to see the sky above.

“Whoa,” he breathed.

The golden rays of the sun – Ishanna, he assumed – poured into the cockpit from over the rocks, casting long shadows that were softened by the reflections bouncing off of all the inactive control panels. It felt solid, almost, too dense to be nothing more than light, like a liquid filling the space around Jay, heavy and blinding, and he let his eyes drift closed, drinking in the sensation.

And the _warmth_! He pressed a hand to the transparisteel; it was cool to the touch, still, likely a residual effect of space travel, and yet he could feel a hint of the heat that was pressing into the ship from the other side. The warmth was intoxicating; he let it spread up his arm and into his chest, like a cluster of glowing embers, radiating into his lungs and his veins, yet not setting him aflame.

The sound of footsteps pulled him out of the trance, and he turned to see a disgruntled Tim stumble into the cockpit next to him.

“Hey!” Jay exclaimed, too loud, ashamed suddenly of how easily he'd forgotten about the unconscious Jedi he was supposed to be looking after. “Are you alright?”

“Great,” Tim grunted. He squinted against the light streaming through the transparisteel, its mesmerizing effect apparently lost on him.

“We're on Ishanna V,” Jay said, to a quick beep of confirmation from R5. He fidgeted a bit as Tim took in the sight of the otherwise empty cockpit, then added, “Jessica went to get some parts for the ship.”

“Great.”

Jay glanced out the viewport, then back to Tim. “Apparently the air here isn't breathable,” he stated.

Tim let out an annoyed sigh. “Great.” He turned and walked away.

“Where are you going?” Jay called after him.

“Nowhere.” Tim disappeared into one of the cabins and slammed the door.

R5 beeped softly, and Jay nodded in agreement. “Yes, very grumpy.” He turned back toward the viewport and closed his eyes again, letting the warmth roll over him once more.

“He'll come around, though.”

 


	10. Grounded

If there was one thing Tim had grown more tired of than anything else, it was staring at the inside of a starship's cabin.

Something so mundane shouldn't even have made the list, he supposed, when there were countless other practical things to be annoyed by. His life being in danger at any given moment, for instance.

But there was something about sitting for hours in a cramped space, with nothing to do but think about how bored he was, that just burrowed under his skin and stayed there.

Perhaps that explained why he could never seem to get the hang of meditation.

It was even worse now, when the ship wasn't in motion and there was no end in sight to the unchanging scenery.

The malfunction itself didn't really matter to Tim so much as the result, and so he hadn't bothered to ask about the details, and in fact barely acknowledged Jessica's return to the ship at all. She hadn't come back completely empty-handed, though she might as well have from the sound of it. Now, from all that he'd gathered without leaving the cabin, the majority of the ship's problems had been repaired, except, of course, for the one that had caused all the others in the first place and grounded them here.

A _thud_ from elsewhere on the ship pulled Tim from his thoughts, and he was on his feet in less than a second, lightsaber at the ready, eyes trained on the cabin door. He stayed like that for a moment, holding his breath, then let it out in a heavy sigh as a series of muffled beeps bled into the small room.

The prospect of even more boredom was the only thing that kept him from sitting back down and staying there. Rolling his eyes, he opened the door and followed the sounds of someone trying rather unsuccessfully to stay silent – a task rendered fairly impossible with that droid beeping insistently every few seconds, in what he assumed was an attempt at a whisper – down into the cargo hold.

Unsurprisingly, there was Jay, shushing the droid in question.

Tim crossed his arms. “Stealth really isn't your strong suit, is it?”

Jay froze, then turned, slowly, a grimace on his face. “Would you believe me if I told you it actually is?”

Tim almost laughed at that. “No.”

Jay gave a quick shrug, then spun on his heel to continue toward the far side of the cargo bay.

With a sigh, Tim followed, waving R5 aside. “What exactly do you think you're doing, anyway?”

“Right now...” Jay stopped to kneel next to a large crate, and began to rummage through it. “I'm finding...an oxygen mask... Aha!” Jay pulled the object in question free in an exaggerated gesture of triumph.

R5 hummed softly beside Tim, and he exchanged a quick glance with her before asking, “Why?”

“Well, I don't know about you, but I've never been a huge fan of suffocation.”

“No, I mean...” He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled.

“I know what you meant.” Jay fiddled with the strap of the mask. “Jessica couldn't find anyone nearby who would trade for the regulator we need, so I'm gonna see if I can't do some finding of my own.”

“Not a bad idea at all,” Tim remarked dryly.

“I know,” Jay said, either ignoring the sarcasm or missing it entirely. Finally, he stood and faced Tim with a grin that was barely visible beneath the apparatus he now wore. “How do I look?”

R5 beeped out something that sounded like a compliment. Tim crossed his arms. “Ridiculous.”

Jay's smile didn't waver. “Thank you.” He brushed past Tim toward the airlock. Tim watched as R5 followed.

Jay turned to face her. “You are going to stay on the ship,” he ordered, pointing a stern finger into her ocular sensor.

“You're going alone?” Tim asked, over R5's buzz of protest.

Jay shrugged. “I move faster by myself.”

Tim glanced over the mostly-faded cuts and bruises beneath the mask Jay wore. He shook his head, slowly, already hating himself for what that strange feeling from before was about to make him do. “Something tells me that's not entirely accurate,” he sighed.

Instantly, Jay's eyes lit up, and he pointed emphatically at the pile of junk Tim was already headed towards. “There's another oxygen mask right there if you want to come with–”

“Keep your voice down,” Tim hissed.

And with that they were off, leaving the ship and a disgruntled R5 behind.

The moment Jay set foot onto solid ground, he was bouncing around like a newborn fathier, and it was all Tim could do just to keep up with him as he marveled over every dull rock in the immediate vicinity like he was surrounded by priceless works of art.

Tim wanted to hold onto his annoyance from before, to give him a sense of purpose as to why he was venturing out into yet another wasteland, but the enthusiasm radiating from Jay's ear-to-ear grin as he gushed over their surroundings proved rather difficult to resist.

“And look at _that!_ ” Jay was exclaiming, pointing with both hands at something just over a small ridge ahead. “There are glass windows on their buildings! Actual, genuine, reflecting-all-the-pretty-lights _glass!_ ”

Tim's lips twitched in a small smile as he took the last few steps to the top of the hill, but his eyes were on Jay rather than the surprisingly sizable trade settlement now visible ahead. “I take it you don't get out much.”

Jay halted his descent to look at Tim, his smile waning a bit. “I mean I've heard plenty of stories, and seen a few holoimages, but...” He turned back to the buildings at the bottom of the hill. “Nothing even comes close to _this_.”

Tim wanted to laugh, almost. “Believe me, it gets much better than this,” he mused, mostly to himself, then continued, a bit louder, “I mean, this whole planet's kind of a glorified trash heap, if we're being honest. But Corellia...”

Jay's attention snapped to Tim. “You've been there?”

Tim nodded, and for once, he didn't fight the smile that found its way to his face. “Not recently, and definitely not often, but I have. And if you think _this_ place is great, just wait until you see the cities there.”

Jay's face lit up, even more than before – he might as well have been competing with the golden sun overhead, now. “All the more reason to hurry, then!”

And with that, he practically sprinted down the hill, Tim following behind him at a much more reasonable pace.

By the time Tim caught up with him, Jay was nearly lost in the crowd of locals just inside the city wall. With a frown, Tim watched for a moment as Jay darted between merchant stalls and side streets, his once-amusing excitement quickly becoming an annoyance once more.

Tim took a few brisk steps forward to catch up and kept his voice low as he spoke.

“Jay.” He paused for a moment while a trio of humans in oxygen masks similar to theirs passed between the two of them. “I know this is exciting for you, but this isn't a great place to draw attention to ourselves.”

Jay grinned. “Are you kidding me, this place is great!” he exclaimed, and Tim winced at his volume. “We've been here three minutes and I've already seen eight kinds of fruit I didn't even know existed!”

“Jay...” Tim hissed, taking another step toward Jay as he moved toward a particular stall at the edge of the marketplace.

“Like this thing!” Jay grabbed a bright purple melon and held it out in Tim's direction with both hands. “What even is this? Nobody knows!”

“Meiloorun,” a Rodian barked from behind the stand, and snatched the melon out of Jay's hands to put it back in its place. “Stupid _jactna_.”

Jay shrugged and started toward another stall, but Tim snatched his elbow, hard enough to make Jay wince and stop in his tracks.

“ _Jay_. You need to _stop_.” He paused, and closed his eyes, took a deep breath in and let it out. When he opened them again, Jay was staring at him, with something like fear dawning behind the quickly draining excitement in his eyes.

A twinge of guilt loosened Tim's grip, but he didn't let go completely. “Look, I'm glad you got to experience all these new things, but it was a bad idea to leave the ship at all. It's time we go back.”

Jay's eyes widened, and he shook his head, though he still spoke quieter than before. “We can't go back yet, we've barely even seen the city!”

Now, it was Tim's turn to shake his head, but before he could open his mouth to respond, he was interrupted by a nearby Drabatan, croaking something in a language Tim didn't understand as they pushed a cart of wares through the crowds.

Jay gestured emphatically toward the merchant. “See? See? This guy gets it,” he stated, exchanging a nod with the merchant as he sidestepped out of the way to let them pass.

“What did they even–”

Jay's fingers were digging into Tim's arm suddenly, pulling him back into the crowd and away from the Drabatan.

Tim blinked, his train of thought completely derailed, and looked up at Jay.

Jay's eyes twitched in an expression that was just too deliberate for a blink, and Tim's gaze lowered to Jay's other hand, resting at his belt. There, surprisingly well-concealed in his fist, something small and metallic reflected a sliver of sunlight into Tim's eyes. Those eyes flicked back up to Jay's, and Jay shrugged nonchalantly at the understanding now dawning behind them.

“Told you it wasn't a bad idea.”


End file.
